The government of Zimbabwe has accused the secret services of the United States, Great Britain and Spain of assisting the presumed mercenaries detained in Harare in organising a plot aimed at overthrowing the President of Equatorial Guinea, Theodor Obiang Nguema. During a press conference, the Zimbabwean interior minister Kembo Mohadi read out a prepared statement claiming that the presumed "mercenaries" were "aided by the British secret service, that is MI6, .... American Central Intelligence Agency and the Spanish secret service". According to Mohadi, the western secret services persuaded "Equatorial Guinea's service chiefs not to put up any resistance, but to cooperate with the coup plotters", promising them government posts in the post-coup administration. The reconstruction provided by the minister is based on information obtained from Simon Mann, who was arrested in Harare last Sunday while waiting for the Boeing 727, which was blocked and impounded in the international airport in the Zimbabwean capital together with its cargo of "military material" and 65 presumed mercenaries of different nationalities. Mann, a former member of the British Special Air Service (SAS), is thought to be one of the managers of Executive Outcomes (EO), the most important mercenary company in the world, although it has been inactive for some time, and one of the founders of Sandline International, the Private Military Company that grew out of the ashes of EO.[LC]

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